


i'm a man with a mission in two or three editions

by paperclipbitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Young Avengers
Genre: Avengers Fest, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:30:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s always fun to watch Natasha putting new people through the shredder.</p>
<p>[Clint shuffles his various families around after <i>Age of Ultron</i>.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm a man with a mission in two or three editions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/gifts).



> [Title from _Everyday I Write The Book_ by Elvis Costello] Hey, **andibeth82** , I basically wanted to write absolutely everything in your letter, and couldn't, so I did a kind of smush of some of the things, and I hope that'll do! 
> 
> Other than that: now I've figured out how to smush the Young Avengers into the MCU (if you aren't into the comics, don't worry, it doesn't take up too much space, you can read this fic), I totally want to do that some more, gosh!

**i.**

“I’m just saying, if you’re recruiting randos now, an invitation would’ve been cool,” Kate says, bouncing Nate on her knee. Nate grins and dribbles happily at her, because he doesn’t know that Kate is terrible and awful and so on.

Laura gives Clint the _you knew this conversation was coming sometime_ look, and Clint suddenly wonders about her choice of babysitters. His wife: just as complicated and devious as any SHIELD personnel. 

“I didn’t want an invitation,” America puts in, from where Lila’s been showing America basically everything she’s acquired in her life since the last time America was over. Clint vaguely suspects that his kids might like America more than they like him, which is sad, but not entirely unexpected: America is alarmingly cool.

“Yeah, well, you and your weird underage illegal superhero team are meant to be staying under the radar,” Clint reminds them both, wondering where his cufflinks are, or if he ever owned cufflinks in the first place. Date night was so much easier before he and Laura acquired children and money and accidental adulthood. “I don’t think you all rocking up in your weirdass costumes the next time the world is in danger is going to go well, PR-wise.”

“Nothing you’ve done lately has gone well, PR-wise,” Kate responds, but she’s cuddling a happy-looking Nate, and acquiring a teenage mini-me means you definitely get to use them for domestic labour, right? 

Clint actually quite likes the younger version of their team, who rocked up a couple of years back when there was an actual SHIELD in place to deal with them and tell them to stop running around the streets calling themselves stuff like Hulkling and I Am Basically Thor and whatever else their codenames were. They weren’t exactly subtle, and public opinion seemed to flit between thinking it was an example of the awful influence of superheroes on their poor impressionable youth, and thinking at least they were doing something other than taking drugs and stabbing each other and getting pregnant. It was also all worth it to see Fury completely losing his shit over the whole situation.

(Laura, being Laura, was mostly concerned about the safety of the kids, and refused to see the utter coolness of Clint having a teenage mini-Hawkeye.

“No one remembers me!” Clint tried explaining, “I’m not Cap, I’m not the Hulk, I’m not Iron Man, no one’s spray painting me onto buildings, but I’ve got one of the Young Avengers!”

Laura gave him a dry, sharp look. “I thought you were glad you weren’t in the spotlight because it helped keep us all safe.”

Clint screwed up his nose. “I know, but, don’t say it like that, it makes me sound terrible.”

Laura kissed his cheek, and pulled the newspaper away from him. “That’s my job, sweetie.”)

Nowadays, Clint doubts the Young Avengers are behaving themselves, especially with most of SHIELD having gone to shit, but they’re quiet about it, and always seem available to babysit.

“You’re going to be late,” America points out, looking up from admiring one of Lila’s latest drawings. America intimidates pretty much everyone she meets, but she’s great with kids; Clint’s not going to point out how adorable it is because he values staying in one piece, thanks very much, but it’s okay, because he’s pretty sure Kate will do it for him.

Clint is quite tempted to suggest to Laura that they just check into a local motel and get some sleep, but, no, he is a grown man and a grown husband and they are going to go for a moderately fancy dinner in moderately fancy clothes like real adult humans and it’s going to be awesome. 

-

They get back pretty late, both giggly on more glasses of wine than either of them usually drink now they’re responsible parents with an extremely small baby, and find Kate and America slumped on the couch in front of a _Law & Order_ marathon; Clint sees them holding hands in the split second before they register that they’re not alone, and instinctively pull apart a little. Clint knows it’s Kate wanting to avoid the inevitable teasing rather than any other kind of worry, but it’s way too late; Laura had them pegged the first time Clint brought over a gang of awkward teenagers for her to mother hen and judge appropriately, and even he can see the way they look at each other when they think no one else is looking.

Teenagers, man.

Nate’s asleep for now, which is a minor miracle, and Clint makes a mental note to add an extra twenty to the pay envelope. Cooper and Lila are both asleep too, wearing homemade paper crowns, and when Clint comes back to say goodbye to the girls, he notes that the living room is very tidy; much tidier than it was before they left, in fact.

“We were playing Ninja Space Murder Princesses,” America is explaining to Laura, cheerfully straight-faced about it.

“Cooper too?” Laura asks, because Cooper is entering that tiresome age where he’s trying to assert his masculinity and pink seems to physically pain him; they’re trying to train him out of it, but they might just have to wait for it to pass.

“Of course,” Kate says. “Boys can be princesses too.”

If it wasn’t for the fact that Clint knows Kate doesn’t have any actual powers, and America’s powers mostly involve kicking holes in the universe, he’d swear they’re both a little magical.

**ii.**

Wanda’s not bad at hand-to-hand combat, which is to say that she can fight herself out of someone’s hold on her in a desperate way that speaks uncomfortable volumes that no one wants to bring up with her yet, but which doesn’t set her up particularly well to face another assailant.

Natasha’s always been insistent that everyone has a good grounding in up close and personal fighting, in case you’ve misplaced your bow and arrow or had your powers stolen or invited a madman to blow up your home and all your Iron Man suits, Tony. Sparring with Natasha is always an experience, one that Clint can appreciate in the sense he’s getting his ass kicked by a master, but it does leave you feeling pretty mangled afterwards.

Clint’s technically on paternity leave at the moment, and he and Laura probably have an important discussion coming up sometime in the future that they’re both putting off, but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t pop back from time to time to see how training’s going, how the new version of the Avengers is putting itself together.

Also, it’s always fun to watch Natasha putting new people through the shredder.

The new gym has a small observation gallery, which Clint assumes means he’s not the only one who feels this way, or possibly that everyone who works here is fixated with Steve’s ass, and he gets himself comfy with a reasonable cup of coffee and watches Natasha explaining something to Wanda, hands moving quickly and fluidly as she demonstrates how everything should work.

Clint remembers learning this move, actually; he sprained something in his ankle and Laura spent about a week alternating between mocking him and playing nursemaid.

Wanda nods and asks a question Clint can’t catch; she’s turned at the wrong angle for him to lipread. Natasha laughs and her hands wave again and when he looks up again, he catches her lips forming the phrase _Clint sprained his ankle_ and rolls his eyes.

“Wanda’s getting much better,” Maria says behind him, and Clint turns to greet her.

Maria’s looking a lot better than when he last saw her, actually, much more like she’s had some actual sleep and isn’t just spending her life deep underground pretending not to be in touch with Fury and holding something resembling SHIELD together with her fingertips. 

“Nat’s keeping her busy,” Clint responds, nodding to where Wanda is tentatively trying to replicate what Natasha’s just explained to her. From this angle, he can see that Wanda’s got a black eye and her lip’s bleeding, but she hasn’t begged off yet; that’s probably a good sign, but maybe not.

“I have organised some actual therapy for her,” Maria says, sitting down next to him with her own coffee. It looks fancier than Clint’s. 

Clint grimaces. “How’s that going?”

“Slowly, from what I can gather,” Maria tells him. “But I work with enough people repressing their problems around here, and Wanda can actually explode if hers get too much, so I figured it might be good to try and get her to talk to someone.”

Clint was there for Pietro collapsing in his own blood and the world shattering in shades of red a few seconds later, so, yes, he can see where therapy could help. He could possibly use some himself, but he had enough when SHIELD were helping him through the Loki thing, and he figures Laura can fill in all the other bits. She always has before.

Wanda twists and tries to catch Natasha’s ankle with her own; Nat moves at the last minute and Wanda loses her balance and crashes onto the mats. Clint winces.

“She put Sam in that hold where you have to dislocate at least one of your shoulders to get out of it on Tuesday,” Maria remarks, dry, and sips her coffee. 

“Did he try?” Clint asks.

“He did,” Maria confirms, “but Steve stepped in before he actually made it that far.”

It’s a little weird, watching Avengers recruits actually being trained; maybe Fury had this in mind for the first set, if Loki hadn’t stepped in and taken the tesseract and sent everything to shit, but Clint wouldn’t swear to it. Now, new people are being trained to fight in styles other than the ones they’re used to, and they’re being trained to work as a team, instead of falling together and hoping that their personality defects might line up one of these days.

“Probably for the best,” Clint allows, because he’s fought against Nat when it was serious and there _wasn’t_ anyone to put a stop to it, and she does have a handful of lines that she won’t cross, but there aren’t many of them.

Maria smirks, like she can tell he’s repressing that schadenfreude that comes from having the Black Widow as a best friend, and Clint makes a face in response.

“You’re all doing alright, though?” he asks, and he keeps his voice light, impersonal, because that’s how you show that you care about people in SHIELD. 

“We’ll manage,” Maria replies, her words punctuated by Wanda smacking into the mats again.

Clint looks back toward the gym again, in time to see Nat offering Wanda a hand back to her feet and Wanda using that opportunity to plant a foot in her gut and drag her down beside her in a pretty sweet move it took Clint a week of bruised stomach muscles to perfect.

“I guess you will,” he remarks, as Natasha and Wanda both start laughing, neither making a move to get up just yet.

“Okay,” Maria says, drawing his attention back, “c’mon, hand over the latest inevitable baby photos.”

Clint makes a face at her, but the paternal pride is never going to wear off, and he knows that by now, and so does Maria, so he just hands over his phone.

**iii.**

Clint got married pretty young; if you want to analyse it, it was probably that he was looking for a home when all his life had had in it up to that point was impermanence and betrayal and kind of a lot of running from the law. That’s all true, though he doesn’t much like thinking about it that way: it’s easier to just accept that he fell in love with Laura, and somehow he’s managed not to fall out.

He got recruited to SHIELD, and Nick Fury agreed to keep Laura’s name out of any files on Clint, and Laura teased him and called him paranoid. And then SHIELD went to shit last year and a handful of people came looking for Clint, but they didn’t find him, and they didn’t find his kids. In the end, Nat called him from Europe and he went running to help put out some of their collective fires, and before he left Laura held him for a long, long time, and he knew what she wasn’t saying, and he promised her aloud that he’d always keep her and the children safe, and when he can’t, someone else will.

That someone else will probably be Natasha, currently watching cartoons with Cooper and Lila, while Nate sleeps on her chest. Clint once pointed out to Nat that his kids seemed to like her best of all; she just shrugged and smirked and said that that was all part of her evil plan, and hey, maybe it is.

The only time their marriage teetered and could really have collapsed was when Clint first brought Natasha back to America. He keeps bits and pieces of his life hidden from Laura, mostly to protect her, sometimes to protect himself, but she knows far more than she should, of course, and he tried for months but couldn’t keep Natasha a secret. It came spilling out one night; Laura was pregnant with Cooper, and they didn’t have the farmhouse yet, and Laura sat and said nothing while Clint tried to explain how he’d been sent to assassinate a Russian spy who seemed to be on everyone’s and no one’s side, and had instead talked her down and convinced her to come with him and defect to SHIELD.

Laura looked at her hands and eventually managed: “I didn’t know you spoke Russian.”

“I don’t,” Clint replied, then tipped his head and admitted: “well, not much, anyway. I can order a beer or two.”

“And bring a killer home with you.”

Laura’s voice was harder than he’d been expecting; he was used to her taking his various SHIELD stories with more composure.

“A killer was coming home either way,” Clint pointed out, and, yeah, he’s done some stuff for SHIELD and his country that he’s not entirely comfortable with, that he tries not to think about, that he wakes up in the night remembering, but he’s always tried to do what he believed was right. His childhood taught him he wanted that much, anyway.

“That’s not the point and you know it.” Laura pulled her hands away from his and stood, crossing the kitchen to turn the taps on. 

“Why are you mad?” he asked. “Are you scared I’m going to have an affair? Because I’m-”

“I’m scared that she’s playing a long game and it’s going to get you and maybe everyone else killed.” Laura’s voice was steady, firm, but her shoulders were shaking.

“Laura.” He walked over to her, rested his hands on her back. “I would never do anything that I thought-”

“You let drop more than you think you do,” Laura told him, twisting out of his hold and turning to look at him. “And you don’t think Maria didn’t call me months ago and tell me that you were trying to rehabilitate the Black Widow?”

Clint felt a little gut-punched, and it showed on his face; he knew it did. “She had no right to do that.”

“She was worried,” Laura replied. “And I’m sure you’ll go into work in the morning and yell at her about scaring your pregnant wife who isn’t supposed to know most of what you do, but for all I know I’m lying next to a sleeper agent at night.”

Clint took a step back, staring at her, his wife, his rock, who had suddenly switched to someone he wasn’t sure he could recognise. “I’m _me_! That’s it! Natasha… yeah, she scares the hell out of me, yeah, she’s stabbed more backs than I can count, yeah, I’ve read the files of what we _know_ about her and I know they’re missing half of it, but I trust her, Laura. I think… I think she was just looking for a way out of a shitty situation, and I know what that feels like.”

Laura’s expression softened for a minute, and then she shook her head and scrubbed her hands against her face. “So you trust her, Clint. That’s… good. I’m sure she’ll be a great asset, if it turns out she’s genuine. But do you trust her with me, Clint? With your son? Because we’re going to get caught in the fallout if she’s lying, and you know that.”

Clint spent a moment trying to think of something else to convince her, and then his brain replayed her words, and he managed: “we’re… son? We’re having a boy?”

Laura nodded, forming a shaky smile, and Clint didn’t care if they were technically mid-argument; he pulled her into a tight hug, pressing kisses into her hair, getting weepy in a way he’d probably deny later.

“I need you to be sure, Clint,” Laura said quietly, the words muffled by her shirt. “Absolutely _sure_.”

“I am,” he promised her. “I swear, I am.”

It’s weird to remember that time now, with Cooper born and settled in middle school and unable to remember a time when Auntie Nat wasn’t in his life. In the end, it was Laura who demanded to meet Natasha; Natasha was terrified, though she covered well, and Clint can’t say he wasn’t relieved once it was all over. 

“Hey,” Laura says, nudging his elbow, and Clint recalls that he’s meant to be doing the dishes. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, shaking his head. “Fine.”

“I’m going to call my mom,” Laura says, and waves her phone at him. “If I don’t do it now, she’ll do it later when we’ve got Nate settled down.”

Clint waits until she gets to the back door before he thinks to add: “I love you, you know.”

“Damn straight, you do,” Laura responds, but her smile is sweet and bright, the one that caught him in the first place and every time afterwards.

Clint leaves a couple of pans in to soak and joins the others on the couch; Lila snuggles under his arm, and when he glances sideways he sees that Nate is happily drooling on Nat’s shirt.

“I was thinking,” Nat says softly after a while, eyes still on _Steven Universe_ , “that you could talk to Wanda. Just something casual about adjusting once you’re out of a bad situation that wasn’t really your fault in the first place.”

“You know about that too,” Clint points out, absently stroking Lila’s hair.

“You’re also pretty good about complex relationships with brothers,” Natasha says. “And I think she likes you more anyway.”

“You have tried to kick her face off on several occasions even now she’s on our team,” Clint reminds her.

Nat laughs, and Nate twitches in his sleep, but remains miraculously unconscious. Clint lets out a silent sigh.

“Maybe I’ll bring her here to meet Nate,” he says. “Few days of R&R.”

“Will Laura mind?” Nat asks.

“I think she’s getting pretty used to this house being a place for superpowered waifs and strays,” Clint replies.

“He means he got Kate and America and that Wiccan guy to help mow the lawn again,” Cooper says. 

“That is not what the teenage Avengers were for,” Natasha tells him, trying to sound firm, but she’s smirking anyway.

“Pretty sure we can get them to do your laundry,” Clint points out.

“Shhhhh!” Lila insists, and Clint and Nat obediently fall silent.

It’ll all break in a few minutes, of course; the cartoon will finish and Nate will wake up scream the place down and Nat will get a call from Steve because things are ruining themselves again, and Clint will have to chase the kids up to bed and tell himself he doesn’t mind not being involved and Laura will briefly get that creased expression she does when he’s a little torn.

But for now, Clint will watch TV with his family; that much, he can manage.


End file.
